Insights · A Different Experience

Identity Crisis in the Age of AI

By Dave O'Riordan · 2026-09-16 · 7 min read · Last checked 2026-10-25

Whole professions are being rewritten in real time by AI. The tremor underneath is not about productivity. It is about identity — and where yours is anchored when the titles move.

I spend a lot of my week listening. I listen to people having discussions around me, podcasts on the commute and at night, YouTube interviews by those who are on the leading front on technology and AI, business owners, and people navigating faith, culture and this ever evolving world we find ourselves in today.

I've also been a keen observer of people. How they carry themselves. How they introduce themselves. How they answer the oldest question there is without ever being asked it out loud.

Who am I?

Over the past several months I keep noticing the same thing, and it keeps growing. People are in the middle of an identity crisis. Quietly, mostly. But it's everywhere you look.

Some of it is the moment we're living in. Whole professions are being rewritten in real time. Skills that took twenty years to master are getting compressed into a prompt. People who built a life on being the one who does that thing are watching the ground move under them, and underneath all the productivity headlines and the AI hype there's a far more human tremor.

If the work that defined me is no longer needed, then what am I?

I don't write that as a spectator. I've been in that spot myself. More than once.

I spent years in ministry and missions. That was who I was. It was stitched into how I understood my whole purpose. Then, over the last dozen years or so, I became a multimedia business owner and found a place where my mind offered value in the business world where critical thinking, operational discipline and problem solving actually mattered.

Those are things I gravitate to naturally, and leaning into them has served me and the various organizations I've worked in well.

Ministry man. Business owner. Operations and improvement leader. On paper that can look like three different fellas wearing the same face. For a long time I treated them that way, quietly wondering which one was the real me.

Then there's Irish Dave. I didn't pick that name. America gave it to me. And I love it, honestly, that this is what people know me by. Sure, I have the accent. I have the story too, arriving into this country with four suitcases, my wife and my kids, ready to start the whole lot over again. I'm proud of where I'm from and I've never shied away from it.

But is that my identity? Or is it just one more of the experiences that have shaped me?

Most recently another version showed up. Over the past couple of years I've gone through some big health changes. I've lost 123 pounds, taken up running, said yes to challenges I'd never have dreamed of, and become genuinely active. Meet me now and "the runner" might be the first box you'd put me in. Two years ago it wouldn't have made the list.

So which one is the real me? Missionary, founder, fixer, immigrant, athlete?

This is where I've landed. Every one of them is real. And not one of them is the foundation.

We build ourselves on things that move.

There's a pattern I think most of us fall into. We anchor who we are to the things around us. The country we live in. The job title we hold. The degree we're chasing. The hobby that has us this season.

Every single one of those can change, and given enough time, it will. That was grand when the world changed slowly. You could give forty years to a trade, retire, and the trade would still be standing. Not anymore. Careers, industries and whole ways of doing business can turn over in a handful of years now. When your sense of self is built on something moving that fast, a wobble isn't a personal failing. It's nearly inevitable.

Scripture saw this long before AI did. "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." That's James. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes spent a whole book chasing meaning through work, wealth, wisdom and pleasure, and called the lot of it vapour, a chasing after wind. Not because those things are worthless. Because they were never built to carry the weight of who I am.

I think of people I know who've reached retirement, the stage where the title finally comes off. A lot of them find themselves suddenly hungry for something with more meaning. They discover that some of the pillars they built their lives on, some of the altars they'd quietly been bowing at, don't hold up the way they'd promised to. Their work still mattered. It just was never meant to be the altar.

When I stopped asking which version of me was the real one, and started asking what connects them, I found the same answer every time. It isn't the ministry. It isn't the business, or the running, or the accent. It's the identity underneath all the identities.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."

That's Galatians. Not I, but Christ in me. That's the thread. Paul could have rattled off a Resume as long as your arm, and instead he said his life was "hidden with Christ in God." Hidden. Not printed on a business card. Not tied to a role that technology could fundamentally change.

That changes everything for me. The missionary, the founder, the operator, Irish Dave, the runner. They're not rivals to choose between at all. Each one is an expression of a single identity that doesn't move. And when that's your foundation, the roles are suddenly free to change without taking you down with them.

A profession can go obsolete. Your worth can't, because it was never sitting there in the first place.

So as AI keeps rewriting what we do, I'd say the bigger question isn't "what will I do now?"

It's the one Jesus put to his own followers. "Who do you say that I am?" And its quiet companion. Who am I, really, when the titles are stripped away?

Stacked against eternity, our roles are a vapour. Held in Christ, our identity is not. The people I've watched come through this moment best aren't the ones gripping a single label for dear life. They're the ones who found an anchor that doesn't drift, and who hold everything else, the careers and the accents and the achievements, with open and grateful hands.

If there's a call in any of this, it's a hopeful one. Move toward Christ. That's where I've found ground that holds, and I'd encourage anyone feeling the tremor to look in that direction.

As I've shared these thoughts, I keep picturing two people who might be reading.

Maybe you already count yourself a follower of Christ, but somewhere along the way you drifted. Distracted. Busy. Pulled off centre. I love how the story of Nehemiah shows the way home. When the people finally stopped, heard the truth again and remembered who they were, they didn't stay lost in the wandering. They turned. They came back into step with God, and they were rebuilt from the inside out. Returning was never treated as a failure. It was the start of the restoration. If that's you, the way back is open, and it's well worth taking.

Or maybe you wouldn't use the word believer yet, but you're seeking, and something here landed. Can I encourage you to pause and ask the honest question?

Is this the thing I've been missing? Is this why I've felt unsettled, ungrounded, like something's off that I could never quite name? Sit with that one for a while.

Life keeps handing us new seasons and new titles, and the tremor comes round for all of us.

The steadying thing is knowing where to stand when the ground shifts. That's not a bad place to be. It's grand, actually.

If you find yourself in either camp and fancy talking it through, my inbox is open. Feel free to DM me. I mean it, I'm here to help.

Dave O'Riordan leads The ADX Group — continuous improvement, critical thinking and AI readiness for organisations. Request a discovery call or see the services.